Days with the Dorans

With the Canadians wanting to take in some fun stuff, we decided to go to the zoo. After that my Littles, Russ and his big kids were going to head to the Tiger game with my dad. I say "were" because my Littles ended up not going. There was a crazy accident that had us getting there really late and my boys chose to skip the game. We actually didn't spend a ton of time with the Hewsons and Aunt Barb but we had a blast anyway. Torin was tired so they left around lunch but we were just getting started. The first place we hit was the Penguin enclosure. I have to admit that I am not a fan of zoos as I believe animals belong in their natural habitat but I learned that most of the animals there are rescued for one reason or another (one of the tigers was actually rescued from a junkyard in Kentucky- someone had her as a PET!) so that made me feel better. Sean was feeling great since he is such a penguin kid (and yes- he got an over-priced stuffed one later).  Next...

Yesterday was a beautiful day and so we decided to load up the kids and take them to the zoo. We bought a zoo membership last year. For just $70 (I think it's 70...) the 6 of us get to come to the zoo as much as we want and there is free parking too. We came to the zoo a lot last year and now that summer is finally about to begin (it's had a slow start for us), we plan on coming a lot more! The zoo has a new dinosaur exhibit! We had to pay an extra $20 to see it, but it was worth it. The dinosaurs were quite life-like with moving eyes and heads. They would growl at you too! Sean stared for a long time at the first dinosaur we saw with the strangest little look on his face. Of course by the time I got out my camera he looked at me, but his expression was petty much the same... "What the heck is that?" Each dinosaur had a sign that told us their name, size, where they were found and some facts about them. The Bigs LOVED it and Joe (especially) asked the moment we left ...

My brother doesn't live far from the zoo and I was excited when he called the night before and asked if I'd like to bring the kids to visit the animals. Like Jeff and I, Dan is a teacher and summer means we get to see more of my him and my niece, Maddy. The trip to the zoo was a great idea because the Bigs have VBS all week and I knew that the L ittles (namely Zach) would LOVE to do something special since the Bigs have been having all the fun lately! I loaded up the double stroller and picked up my brother and niece and we were off! Unfortunately storms were predicted, so we knew that it wouldn't be a long visit but going for the morning turned out to be just perfect. Both Danny and I are fast walkers and we saw just about all the animals. Most of them were out and walking around which was wonderful. Zach loved it. He would jump out of the stroller, see an animal and then get right back in and say, "Let's go to the next animal." It was as if he knew a s...